NBC's Lauer Begs Colin Powell to 'Throw His Weight Behind' Obama Again
On Tuesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer pleaded with former
Secretary of State Colin Powell to again endorse Barack Obama for
president: "...it sounds like you're on his [Obama's] team still, four
years later....why hesitate at this stage of the game here? I mean, it's
basically Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney. Why not just come out right now and throw your weight behind somebody?" [Listen to the audio]
At the top of the show, fellow co-host Ann Curry excitedly teased the upcoming interview: "Four
years ago, one of the country's most prominent Republicans threw his
support behind Democrat Barack Obama. Will he endorse him again?"
Early in the segment, Lauer teed up Powell to praise Obama: "You
endorsed Barack Obama back in 2008. You called him a transformational
figure who represented generational change. Did you get from President
Obama the kind of generational change, was he the transformational
figure, or has he been, that you counted on?"
Powell proclaimed:
I think he has been. Not completely. There are some things that he has done that I wish he had not done. For example, leave Guantanamo open. I would have closed that rapidly. He tried, he was stopped by Congress. He stabilized the financial system. He brought about a stability in the economy. He fixed the auto industry. I think he took us out, not completely out, but he took us out of the most difficult problem we were facing at that time, which was an economy that was collapsing. And it's improving, but not fast enough. So his number one – his number one goal for the rest of this year, as it should have been for the whole four years, is to get the economy running again.
Lauer happily concluded: "If I'm Barack Obama, I'm sitting here
listening to you say all these things, I think that sounds like a pretty
good campaign endorsement."
However, Powell didn't cooperate with Lauer's eager assertion: "I ought
to listen to what the President says and what the President's been
doing. But you know, I also have to listen to what the other fellows
say. I've known Mitt Romney for many years, good man."
After Lauer insisted Powell "throw his weight behind somebody," Powell
replied: "I don't want to throw my weight behind somebody....I'm still
listening to what the Republicans are saying they're going to do to fix
the fiscal problems we have, to get the economy moving. And I think I
owe that to the Republican Party..."
Having failed to get the headline he was after, Lauer moved on to
Powell's new book, "It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership."
Specifically Lauer seized on Powell's recollections in the memoir about
the lead up to the Iraq war:
In your book you talk about that famous appearance you made before the United Nations during the buildup to the war in Iraq and you write that the office of then-Vice President Dick Cheney tried to select the intelligence you'd use in that appearance. You describe the case presented to you as a disaster and incoherent. You even said that Vice President Cheney urged you to use assertions that linked Iraq and 9/11, which had been discredited months earlier. Did the Vice President knowingly try to mislead the American people and leaders around the world prior to the war in Iraq?
Lauer was likely disappointed by Powell's response: "Prior to the war in Iraq, I have no reason to believe that. We all were operating off the same basic intelligence. And it wasn't anything new that was put together for the U.N. speech. The Vice President kept pushing, kept encouraging us to look at everything."
Here is a full transcript of the May 22 interview:
7:00AM ET TEASE:
ANN CURRY: The General. Four years ago, one of the country's most
prominent Republicans threw his support behind Democrat Barack Obama.
Will he endorse him again? We're going to ask him as he joins us to talk
about politics, leadership and his time in the public eye.
7:07AM ET SEGMENT:
MATT LAUER: General Colin Powell, who served as secretary of state
under President George W. Bush, made some headlines four years ago when
he endorsed Barack Obama for president. He's out with a brand-new book
called, "It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership." General, it's always
nice to see you. Welcome back to the show.
COLIN POWELL: Thank you, Matt. Good to be back.
LAUER: Let's talk about Afghanistan. Chuck [Todd] just talked about it.
Here's what you said on Meet the Press two years ago. Quote, "We all
hoped in 2001 that we could put in place in Afghanistan a government
under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make
sure al Qaeda didn't come back and make sure the Taliban wasn't
resurrecting. It didn't work out." You said that two years ago. 700
Americans or so have lost their lives in that country since then. We
still aren't out of there. Was it worth the sacrifice?
POWELL: I think it was worth the sacrifice to give the Afghan people a
chance to create a government that was representative of all of the
Afghan people and to bring some stability to the country. Now, a few
years later, the Afghans are showing that they have more and more
capacity. Their forces have been built up, military and police forces.
And you know, we can only do so much and go so far. They have to be in
charge of their country.
LAUER: Do you think we'll leave behind a stable country that will accomplish the things you talked about?
POWELL: That is what remains to be seen. I'm not totally satisfied, in
fact I'm not hardly satisfied with the nature of the regime, the
corruption that exists and a lot of the other problems that exist. But
at the same time, you have to draw the line at some point. And I think
the decision that's been made over the weekend that we would stop active
combat operations at the end of next year, and then stay in place and
finally withdraw in 2014, but leave behind whatever is necessary to give
the Afghans the support they need, and whatever capacities they need,
they don't now have.
LAUER: But you endorsed Barack Obama back in 2008. You called him a
transformational figure who represented generational change. Did you get
from President Obama the kind of generational change, was he the
transformational figure, or has he been, that you counted on?
POWELL: I think he has been. Not completely. There are some things that
he has done that I wish he had not done. For example, leave Guantanamo
open. I would have closed that rapidly. He tried, he was stopped by
Congress. He stabilized the financial system. He brought about a
stability in the economy. He fixed the auto industry. I think he took us
out, not completely out, but he took us out of the most difficult
problem we were facing at that time, which was an economy that was
collapsing. And it's improving, but not fast enough. So his number one –
his number one goal for the rest of this year, as it should have been
for the whole four years, is to get the economy running again.
LAUER: If I'm Barack Obama, I'm sitting here listening to you say all
these things, I think that sounds like a pretty good campaign
endorsement. That it sounds like you're on his team still, four years
later.
POWELL: Oh, he knows better. He knows that I always keep my powder dry,
as we say in the military. I feel, as a private citizen, I ought to
listen to what the President says and what the President's been doing.
But you know, I also have to listen to what the other fellows say. I've
known Mitt Romney for many years, good man. And it's not just a matter
of weather you support Obama or Romney, it's who they have coming in
with them, what policies do they-
LAUER:
Yeah, but why hesitate at this stage of the game here? I mean, it's
basically Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney. Why not just come out right now
and throw your weight behind somebody?
POWELL: Because I don't want to throw my weight behind somebody. The
beautiful part of being a private citizen is you can decide when you
want to throw your weight, if you want to throw your weight. I'm still
listening to what the Republicans are saying they're going to do to fix
the fiscal problems we have, to get the economy moving. And I think I
owe that to the Republican Party, I owe that. And I also think it is the
right way to go about it. Too often in this country we simply stick
with, you know, whatever you said last year is it, even if it doesn't,
you know, work out or make sense. So I like to listen to everybody,
examine everything, and then in due course make a judgment and vote the
way I think is the correct way to vote is.
LAUER: In your book you talk about that famous appearance you made
before the United Nations during the buildup to the war in Iraq and you
write that the office of then-Vice President Dick Cheney tried to select
the intelligence you'd use in that appearance. You describe the case
presented to you as a disaster and incoherent. You even said that Vice
President Cheney urged you to use assertions that linked Iraq and 9/11,
which had been discredited months earlier. Did the Vice President
knowingly try to mislead the American people and leaders around the
world prior to the war in Iraq?
POWELL: Prior to the war in Iraq, I have no reason to believe that. We
all were operating off the same basic intelligence. And it wasn't
anything new that was put together for the U.N. speech. The Vice
President kept pushing, kept encouraging us to look at everything. And
he probably felt more strongly about-
LAUER: At everything or selective intelligence?
POWELL: Everything. Everything. And select – well, selected is part of
everything. And he felt strongly about some particular issues – say the
linkage between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein and how al Qaeda might have
played in that – and he kept pressing to see if there was anything
there. But at the end of the day, there was nothing there. And I did not
use it, because there was nothing there. You have to remember that this
was a National Intelligence Estimate that was used by the President
long before my speech, that Congress used that National Intelligence
Estimate three months before my speech. And the decision to go to war
had already been made before my speech.
LAUER: In the book you also say people want leaders who have moral and
physical courage, who always do the right thing when asked and will risk
their careers in doing so. You've also written about that appearance
before the United Nations, and you referred to it as one of your most
momentous failures. That will earn a prominent paragraph in your
obituary. So did you live up to, at that moment, your own definition of
leadership and what people want in this country?
POWELL: When I was asked to make that presentation, I was given four
days to get ready for it. I did everything I could, by going out to the
CIA with an entire team of people and going through all the intelligence
they had. And being assured that they had multiple sources for
everything that I would be saying at the U.N. Every word in that
presentation was certified by the CIA and the intelligence community.
The director of the CIA sat right behind me when I presented it. He was
up most of the night before, verifying it.
It just turned out that subsequently, a lot of it was right, but the
guts of it, the existence of weapons of mass destruction, in existence
in Iraq, were not there. It was not there. The sources were bad. Now the
good part of this is that Saddam Hussein is gone. That terrible regime
has been eliminated. And the Iraqi people now have the chance of a
better life with a new regime and we don't have to worry about whether
they have weapons of mass destruction or not anymore. Saddam Hussein is
not there to terrorize his people.
LAUER: General Colin Powell. General, it's always nice to have you stop by the studio. We appreciate it.
POWELL: My pleasure.
LAUER: I want to tell people that the book is now in bookstores.
-- Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Kyle Drennen on Twitter.
